Momento Mori
by JadziaKathryn
Summary: Trip was good for the soul. Travis reflects.


Disclaimer: I don't own them. Do you think Trip would've been killed off if I did?

A/N: I tried to tell myself that one finale-fix was enough. It didn't work. Travis needed to mourn too.

Spoilers: "Terra Prime," "These Are the Voyages"

**Memento Mori **

Somehow, I thought it would never end. Sure, some of us were going different ways –Hoshi back to Brazil, and I didn't even know where I was going- but we would all be around. We'd keep in touch, maybe have reunions.

Certainly we weren't going to die. We'd survived the Xindi mission, and there couldn't be anything more desperate, more dangerous, or more perilous. Plus we were the senior officers.

In retrospect, I don't know how seniority was supposed to protect us forever.

I was the last member of the senior staff to stop calling him "Commander Tucker." It took me almost four years at that. After a while, though, we'd all been through so much together that it was natural to use first names and nicknames, except for the captain.

Trip was like an older brother in a lot of ways. He pulled me out of a river just last month and didn't even tell Malcolm that I slipped because I was picking up a nifty rock. When Gannet broke up with me for the second time, he brought over a bottle of something he'd picked up on Vishka. Jhu'it Nectar, it was called. Strong stuff, and we shared the bottle during a talk about women, and how hard it is to have a girlfriend when you're light-years away from her.

True to older brother form, he didn't say anything about T'Pol. I still thought that the two of them might get together, right up until last week.

Up until last week I had forgotten how close to death we live. My father said something in Latin a long time ago, when he was talking to us about being men. "Remember that you will die," it had meant. He tied it in with living so that you don't leave loose ends.

I asked Hoshi about it, and she gave me a sad smile. "Memento mori," she'd said, giving the words additional sorrow with her eyes. Trip's death has reinforced her decision to leave Starfleet and return to teaching. Brazil is a lot safer than deep space, she said, but I don't think that's all of it. Trip's easygoing, friendly personality helped her settle into living on _Enterprise_. Losing him shook the core of what she built the last decade on.

Two years ago, we spent shore leave on an uninhabited moon. We rolled out the sleeping bags and toasted marshmallows. Trip surprised us by pulling graham crackers and chocolate bars out of his pack.

"_We can have s'mores!" he exclaimed happily._

_While he was doling out graham crackers, Phlox was looking around curiously. "What exactly are these 's'mores?'"_

"_Chocolate an' marshmallow melted in between graham crackers. Doc, your marshmallow's on fire!"_

_As Phlox scraped his stick to make way for a new marshmallow, he observed that s'mores aren't very good for you. Trip looked at him like he'd started speaking in Denobulan. _

"_They're good for the soul, Doc," he explained._

Trip was the kind of friend that's good for the soul. He'd make you smile when you didn't think it was possible, make you laugh even if your uniform was covered in unidentified alien goop, and show you things you hadn't seen before.

Last year we investigated a planet that had been hit by a comet. The entire continent was bleak. It was depressing.

"_Well look at this," Trip said. _

"_What have you found?" asked T'Pol._

"_Grass." Sure enough, he had found a tiny blade of lime-green grass poking up through the debris. Trip had managed to find the only sign of life for several square kilometers. _

Memento mori. Trip had a knack for getting himself (and often Malcolm as well) into more trouble than anyone else on _Enterprise_. Nobody was confronted with their own death more often than he was. All those times we thought he was going to die, and we could do something. It was a protracted process, agonizing when there was nothing I personally could do. When he died, it wasn't like that. It was fast, and there was nothing that we could do. Phlox was the only one, but even he can only produce so many miracles.

He died heroically, saving Captain Archer, Shran, and Shran's cute little girl. Still, I can't help wondering if there was another way. We always found a way to cheat death before, especially where Trip was concerned. It's so tragic, so unbelievable, that everyone he left behind doesn't even know where to begin.

Life, someone pointed out, will go on. But it will never be the same.

Most people have left _Enterprise_ now. Even Malcolm has gone. It's eerie to see the ship like this, but I haven't found what I'm looking for yet. If I don't find it here, I'll never find it.

"Travis," says Captain Archer, Porthos at his side. "So you're the other person. I wondered who else was still here."

He'll be the last one off. Trip would have been right beside him, staying on his ship until the end. "I'll be going soon."

"Don't hurry on my account. I'm still here."

"Taking Porthos for one more walk around?"

He nods. "All the food is out of the mess hall. He was very disappointed."

I reach down. "Hey Porthos." Those beagle eyes get me every time. I always end up petting him.

"He misses Trip." This isn't Captain Archer, the larger-than-life figure who signed the Federation Charter on behalf of Earth, whose speech roused the whole audience into a standing ovation. This is the man who just lost his best friend.

"We all do." Porthos wags his tail a little. "It seems so unreal."

He looks over past the next corner to where Trip's quarters are. "I'll see you at the reception?"

I know that he has to go into Trip's quarters one last time. "That's the third reception. See you there."

We walk in opposite directions. Out of habit, I go to the sweet spot. It's familiar and comfortable. I wonder if the new ships will have sweet spots. Someone actually called them a "design flaw."

I enjoy the feeling of slowly leaving gravity behind. Suddenly I remember meeting Trip here six years ago. I'd been distracted, trying to think about Gannet and not think about Gannet at the same time. Since I couldn't sleep, I thought I'd visit the sweet spot.

_We collided, but it didn't hurt. Collisions rarely hurt in zero-g. "Commander Tucker!" I was still calling him by his rank then. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you."_

"_S'okay, Travis. No harm done."_

"_Captain Archer is worried about you." I don't know why I said that, exactly. _

"_I'll be alright, I guess. I never imagined I could love someone I knew for such a short time as much as I loved Elizabeth."_

_Suddenly, my problems with Gannet seemed insignificant. "I'm sorry."_

"_We all are. There's nothin' anyone could've done." A tear rolled off his face and floated off to the side. "It just doesn't make sense. You're always sayin' it's relaxin' here, so I thought I'd give it a try."_

_I didn't say anything, because I couldn't think of anything to say. He went on. "I don't think there's anythin' that makes losin' your kids any easier, though. Even if you didn't have a hand in…well, you know."_

We floated in silence for a long time then. It didn't make sense that Elizabeth died, and it doesn't make sense that Trip died. In time, though, things returned to at least a sense of normalcy. If Trip or T'Pol walked into Sickbay, they would try not to look at the corner where Elizabeth had been. Sometimes that was the only public indication that they still thought about her, but every year the two of them would request the anniversary of her death off, and nobody would see them all day.

I remember right before Elizabeth died, actually. I went to Sickbay to get something for my headache. Trip and T'Pol were in the corner.

"_It's not keepin' her alive, T'Pol, so we might as well hold her. She can at least be in the arms of people who love her." He was choked up. _

_T'Pol lifted their baby out of the medical chamber. "Very well. You should hold her. I was able to on Paxton's ship." Phlox ushered me out the door, but the image of Trip holding his dying daughter, with T'Pol holding one tiny hand, was something I would never forget. _

There are some things we never really recover from. We can go on, but life is never quite the same. This is one of them. Trip was special to all of us, and I think it's partially because he was so vibrantly alive that we can't believe he's gone. And yet, we will go on. Just like Trip did.

For the first time since the Charter was signed, I smile. It's time to go now. There's a lot out there, waiting for us to explore it. Trip wouldn't want us to miss it. After all, he didn't let tragedy keep him back.

Besides, I have to find Captain Archer again. There's a new warp lab in Starfleet Academy, and I think we can get it named the Tucker Research Lab.


End file.
